Virgin 1Gb now available.

BigMoose

Totally agree, I'm coming towards the end of my 12 months on 500/50 and really don't see the point of 1Gb for domestic users without the 100 up. We're a house of heavy users but I can wait a few more mins for that 10Gb file to download on the rare occasion the server gives it at my connection max speed or one of my sons happens to be downloading one too.

Virgin don't seem to have got the offering/price right of the 1Gb product compared to Siro, which has just become available to us. My only concern with moving is Virgin has been rock solid 500/50, but you read all sorts of horror stories on the Siro threads of crappy evening speeds.

deravarra

BigMoose wrote: »

Totally agree, I'm coming towards the end of my 12 months on 500/50 and really don't see the point of 1Gb for domestic users without the 100 up. We're a house of heavy users but I can wait a few more mins for that 10Gb file to download on the rare occasion the server gives it at my connection max speed or one of my sons happens to be downloading one too.

Virgin don't seem to have got the offering/price right of the 1Gb product compared to Siro, which has just become available to us. My only concern with moving is Virgin has been rock solid 500/50, but you read all sorts of horror stories on the Siro threads of crappy evening speeds.

I am a bit puzzled as to why VM did not deliver the 1GB as per Mike Fries' promise of "getting there before Eir" - as stated in Silicon Republic
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/liberty-global-1gbps-virgin-mike-fries

Of course when I mentioned that to any VM rep - they were humming and hawing about Eir not being fully at 1Gig. God love them, but I thought they'd slipped a bit below Eir sales reps in terms of telling it as it isn't.

Anyhow, I am of the opinion that Ireland will always remain way down the pecking order for any of LG's offerings, and that we will be told we should be happy to get the crumbs from the masters table.

Still, if crumbs means a stable 500mb, then we're ok for a while.

CoBo55

deravarra wrote: »

I am a bit puzzled as to why VM did not deliver the 1GB as per Mike Fries' promise of "getting there before Eir" - as stated in Silicon Republic
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/liberty-global-1gbps-virgin-mike-fries

Of course when I mentioned that to any VM rep - they were humming and hawing about Eir not being fully at 1Gig. God love them, but I thought they'd slipped a bit below Eir sales reps in terms of telling it as it isn't.

Anyhow, I am of the opinion that Ireland will always remain way down the pecking order for any of LG's offerings, and that we will be told we should be happy to get the crumbs from the masters table.

Still, if crumbs means a stable 500mb, then we're ok for a while.

AHH will ya stop with that aul cap clenching rubbish. Have you seen the VM ads on UK tv? Or any of the UK isp's? they aren't offering a quarter of the speeds available to us, VM making a big deal out of 100meg... BT are providing even less. I've siblings living in The Netherlands and we've speeds they can only dream about.

deravarra

CoBo55 wrote: »

AHH will ya stop with that aul cap clenching rubbish. Have you seen the VM ads on UK tv? Or any of the UK isp's? they aren't offering a quarter of the speeds available to us, VM making a big deal out of 100meg... BT are providing even less. I've siblings living in The Netherlands and we've speeds they can only dream about.

1 Gig speeds are widely available in the UK with VM.
UPC Switzerland, Poland and Slovakia offering 1 Gig speeds.
Ziggo offer 1Gbps.
All are liberty global companies.

The reason why VM make a big deal out of the 100mb is because most of their customers want the cheapest connection - and hey, this is it!
Plusnet - very popular because of this kind of offering as well.

Like for like, VM UK offer a far better value for money top marque package. TV, internet, phone and mobile.
If I was to even try to bundle like for like in VM Ireland, I would be charged a lot more than what is being asked in the UK.

So yes, I would stand by the original statement. We, in Ireland, lag behind offerings across LG brands.

btw, I have no cap to clench

CoBo55

deravarra wrote: »

1 Gig speeds are widely available in the UK with VM.
UPC Switzerland, Poland and Slovakia offering 1 Gig speeds.
Ziggo offer 1Gbps.
All are liberty global companies.

The reason why VM make a big deal out of the 100mb is because most of their customers want the cheapest connection - and hey, this is it!
Plusnet - very popular because of this kind of offering as well.

Like for like, VM UK offer a far better value for money top marque package. TV, internet, phone and mobile.
If I was to even try to bundle like for like in VM Ireland, I would be charged a lot more than what is being asked in the UK.

So yes, I would stand by the original statement. We, in Ireland, lag behind offerings across LG brands.

btw, I have no cap to clench

Now you're shifting the goal posts in true boards fashion, you stated that we in Ireland are being left behind by LG regarding available speeds which as you pointed out in your reply isn't true. So which is it? Are we getting slower speeds than Switzerland, Poland etc? No we aren't, we are getting 1gig the same as they are. Pricing is a whole different story that Ireland will never win because of our tiny population.

deravarra

CoBo55 wrote: »

Now you're shifting the goal posts in true boards fashion, you stated that we in Ireland are being left behind by LG regarding available speeds which as you pointed out in your reply isn't true. So which is it? Are we getting slower speeds than Switzerland, Poland etc? No we aren't, we are getting 1gig the same as they are. Pricing is a whole different story that Ireland will never win because of our tiny population.

The whole conversation stemmed from my initial statement of:

I am a bit puzzled as to why VM did not deliver the 1GB as per Mike Fries' promise of "getting there before Eir" - as stated in Silicon Republic

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comm...gin-mike-fries

Thats why I said we are lagging behind. And we were one of the last to get said same in LG's group of companies.

Yes, pricing is different, but indicative of the way we lag behind other LG companies in terms of offerings and pricing structure.

bk

Actually Virgin Media in the UK only offer 1Gig in limited areas, they don't offer it to most of their network yet, unlike Virgin here, who offer 1gig to 98% of their network.

Also the upload speed of VMUK's 1gig service is also only 52mb/s

The highest speed VMUK offers to most of their network is 516mb/s down and 36mb/s up for £62 or €72

By comparison we get 500mb/s down and 50mb/s up for €71, with the higher upload speed then the UK, I'd say this is a better deal.

Also we have the 1gig service available almost everywhere on the VM network, for those who want it, unlike VM UK.

So I have to say VM Ireland is still quiet a bit ahead of VM UK.

BTW UPC Polands 1gig service upload speed is only 40mb/s, I'd prefer our 500/50 service. Though price is great in Poland, but keep in mind wages are far lower there.

UPC Switzerland do offer 100mb/s up on their 1gig service, they are one of the few LG regions that do.

Ziggo, which BTW is 50-50 joint venture with Vodafone, only offers their 1gig service in limited areas like VM UK, otherwise 500/40 is the highest offered. Where 1gig is available, it is also only 50mb/s up too.

So with the exception of Switzerland, we have the same or better then almost all other LG regions.

deravarra

bk wrote: »

Actually Virgin Media in the UK only offer 1Gig in limited areas, they don't offer it to most of their network yet, unlike Virgin here, who offer 1gig to 98% of their network.

Also the upload speed of VMUK's 1gig service is also only 52mb/s

The highest speed VMUK offers to most of their network is 516mb/s down and 36mb/s up for £62 or €72

By comparison we get 500mb/s down and 50mb/s up for €71, with the higher upload speed then the UK, I'd say this is a better deal.

Also we have the 1gig service available almost everywhere on the VM network, for those who want it, unlike VM UK.

So I have to say VM Ireland is still quiet a bit ahead of VM UK.

BTW UPC Polands 1gig service upload speed is only 40mb/s, I'd prefer our 500/50 service. Though price is great in Poland, but keep in mind wages are far lower there.

UPC Switzerland do offer 100mb/s up on their 1gig service, they are one of the few LG regions that do.

Ziggo, which BTW is 50-50 joint venture with Vodafone, only offers their 1gig service in limited areas like VM UK, otherwise 500/40 is the highest offered. Where 1gig is available, it is also only 50mb/s up too.

So with the exception of Switzerland, we have the same or better then almost all other LG regions.

Points agreed - but we did come late to the party. Mike Fries promised VM would get to 1 Gig before Eir would. Eir and Siro had 1 Gig before VM did.

98% of a small population/country compared to 12 large cities in the UK with much larger populations wouldn't be anything to be proud of tbh - but yes, I acknowledge that when they did make the offering public, it was mostly available to all.

WRT to value for money/price - I was referring to the big bundles.
You try the biggest bundle in the UK - which includes movies and sports from the satellite company, more sports from BT, along with a hape of others unavailable in ireland, then you're gonna pay £139 per month after discount expires. Thats about €161.
Try to get all the above with VM Ireland, and you'll find it impossible. But get as close as you can, and you'll still pay much more. In fact, with just Sky Sports, no movies, and no BT sports, and without a load of other channels, you will be paying €197 after promo discount ends.
That does not show good value for money. In fact, it shows quite poor value for money.

bk

deravarra wrote: »

Points agreed - but we did come late to the party. Mike Fries promised VM would get to 1 Gig before Eir would. Eir and Siro had 1 Gig before VM did.

I think you are miss reading his comments in the article. He isn't saying who would be first to 1gig, sure when he made that comment, Eir and Siro already were already rolling out FTTP and already had some customers on 1gig. No, what he was saying, was that when VM turned on 1gig, that it would be immediately available to the majority of VM customers overnight.

Once VM launched 1gig, any customer could order it and within a few days a new modem would arrive, plug it in and have 1gig.

That certainly isn't true for Eir, most of their customers are still stuck on VDSL or ADSL and it will be years before FTTP even becomes an option to most of them and even then, the install is a lot more involved.

So my reading of it, he was spot on. Eir are doing great work, but they still have a long way to catch up.

I don't think Eir has ever published how many customers are actually on FTTP (as opposed to VDSL or FTTP homes passed). I strongly suspect that VM has far more customers on greater then 100mb/s service then Eir does in reality.

deravarra wrote: »

WRT to value for money/price - I was referring to the big bundles.
You try the biggest bundle in the UK - which includes movies and sports from the satellite company, more sports from BT, along with a hape of others unavailable in ireland, then you're gonna pay £139 per month after discount expires. Thats about €161.
Try to get all the above with VM Ireland, and you'll find it impossible. But get as close as you can, and you'll still pay much more. In fact, with just Sky Sports, no movies, and no BT sports, and without a load of other channels, you will be paying €197 after promo discount ends.
That does not show good value for money. In fact, it shows quite poor value for money.

Well first of this is the broadband forum, so the focus would more be on that.

It can be very hard to compare prices on bundles like this across countries, due to differences in channels carried, right holder issues, etc. A lot of these issues can be out of VM's hands as the pricing is decided by Sky, BT, etc.

I think if you look at the broadband pricing, which is completely in their control, you see that while not cheap, it is the same as the UK and other similar countries and is thus fair.

Personally I haven't used UPC/VM for TV in over 10 years. It was never great. I use them just for the quality BB. I had Sky for a while, but dumped that too. Unless you are a big sports fan, I think both Sky and VM TV are a big waste of money. Saorview + Freesat + Netflix/Disney/Prime are where it is now IMO.

CoBo55

deravarra wrote: »

Points agreed - but we did come late to the party. Mike Fries promised VM would get to 1 Gig before Eir would. Eir and Siro had 1 Gig before VM did.

98% of a small population/country compared to 12 large cities in the UK with much larger populations wouldn't be anything to be proud of tbh - but yes, I acknowledge that when they did make the offering public, it was mostly available to all.

WRT to value for money/price - I was referring to the big bundles.
You try the biggest bundle in the UK - which includes movies and sports from the satellite company, more sports from BT, along with a hape of others unavailable in ireland, then you're gonna pay £139 per month after discount expires. Thats about €161.
Try to get all the above with VM Ireland, and you'll find it impossible. But get as close as you can, and you'll still pay much more. In fact, with just Sky Sports, no movies, and no BT sports, and without a load of other channels, you will be paying €197 after promo discount ends.
That does not show good value for money. In fact, it shows quite poor value for money.

You see you keep bouncing around from speed to cost, even with the facts laid before you you still continue to waffle on trying to justify your original post that only mentioned speed. The facts are that we in Ireland aren't getting the crumbs from the table but are getting as good a product as any other LG country, a better product in some cases. In my personal case here in County Wexford VM have been first to my door with 1gig.

slith

CoBo55 wrote: »

You see you keep bouncing around from speed to cost, even with the facts laid before you you still continue to waffle on trying to justify your original post that only mentioned speed. The facts are that we in Ireland aren't getting the crumbs from the table but are getting as good a product as any other LG country, a better product in some cases. In my personal case here in County Wexford VM have been first to my door with 1gig.

Here in Midleton I signed up with a Siro reseller for a temporary package while waiting for Siro. Siro vans driving up and down our street every other day 'doing stuff', I was told Siro was coming 'any day now' (this was October). As it turns, Siro decided to not release their fiber package to my street. When Siro was questioned they came back with:

'SIRO does not have any current plans to extend its roll out to your premises'
[...]
'At present, the build in Midleton is suspended so we cannot advise whether your premises will be connected.'

On the other hand, VM had me connected in 3 weeks. No nonsense. Speed and installation process as advertised.

CoBo55

slith wrote: »

Here in Midleton I signed up with a Siro reseller for a temporary package while waiting for Siro. Siro vans driving up and down our street every other day 'doing stuff', I was told Siro was coming 'any day now' (this was October). As it turns, Siro decided to not release their fiber package to my street. When Siro was questioned they came back with:

'SIRO does not have any current plans to extend its roll out to your premises'
[...]
'At present, the build in Midleton is suspended so we cannot advise whether your premises will be connected.'

On the other hand, VM had me connected in 3 weeks. No nonsense. Speed and installation process as advertised.

Same messing going on here too, the fibre reels have been hanging on houses for over a year. TLI vans driving around the odd day here and there, a shambles of a roll out in. Seeing the evening drops people are getting on other threads I'm going to stay with VM.

slith

CoBo55 wrote: »

Same messing going on here too, the fibre reels have been hanging on houses for over a year. TLI vans driving around the odd day here and there, a shambles of a roll out in. Seeing the evening drops people are getting on other threads I'm going to stay with VM.

Slightly off that topic, talking about stability, do you guys think rebooting the VM modem nightly helps at all? I'm having some issues with stability that are hard to explain (and the culprit always seems to be the VM modem).

CoBo55

slith wrote: »

Slightly off that topic, talking about stability, do you guys think rebooting the VM modem nightly helps at all? I'm having some issues with stability that are hard to explain (and the culprit always seems to be the VM modem).

Luckily I've never had stability issues. Are you on the. 1gig package with the new modem? If so I suggested to another poster to buy a cheap socket timer and set it to power off during the night, maybe that would help.

allanroche

CoBo55 wrote: »

Luckily I've never had stability issues. Are you on the. 1gig package with the new modem? If so I suggested to another poster to buy a cheap socket timer and set it to power off during the night, maybe that would help.

That was me and it works well so thanks!

CoBo55

allanroche wrote: »

That was me and it works well so thanks!

No bother I couldn't remember which thread it was in.

slith

allanroche wrote: »

That was me and it works well so thanks!

I've just noticed I had turned off the reboot schedule in my smart plug... Oh well, this definitely means I need the nightly restart so!

LoGiE

My VM equipment has been in modem mode from day 1 and I haven't had any stability problems. It's nuts that anyone feels the need to restart their equipment every night. It's pretty well established that the supplied equipment is bargin basement gear...maybe even the room below the bargin basement. You'd want to be a masochist to fork out for a 1gb connection and stick with it for routing and wifi.

Treat yourself to a decent router or mesh system and take the steps to put the VM equipment into modem mode. You'll have a much better experience.

CoBo55

LoGiE wrote: »

My VM equipment has been in modem mode from day 1 and I haven't had any stability problems. It's nuts that anyone feels the need to restart their equipment every night. It's pretty well established that the supplied equipment is bargin basement gear...maybe even the room below the bargin basement. You'd want to be a masochist to fork out for a 1gb connection and stick with it for routing and wifi.

Treat yourself to a decent router or mesh system and take the steps to put the VM equipment into modem mode. You'll have a much better experience.

That's what I have, probably the main reason I'm enjoying such a good service!!

slith

LoGiE wrote: »

My VM equipment has been in modem mode from day 1 and I haven't had any stability problems. It's nuts that anyone feels the need to restart their equipment every night. It's pretty well established that the supplied equipment is bargin basement gear...maybe even the room below the bargin basement. You'd want to be a masochist to fork out for a 1gb connection and stick with it for routing and wifi.

Treat yourself to a decent router or mesh system and take the steps to put the VM equipment into modem mode. You'll have a much better experience.

That's what I have, but I have to say that since I got the VM box switched to modem mode, I have stability issues.

Now, 2 days out of 2 is not an statistic, so hard to tell if lack of a nightly restart is the issue. New houses are being connected regularly here, so maybe that is having a knock on effect on my connection.

I completely agree that the VM box is basement gear, if I had a basement that's where it would be...

allanroche

LoGiE wrote: »

My VM equipment has been in modem mode from day 1 and I haven't had any stability problems. It's nuts that anyone feels the need to restart their equipment every night. It's pretty well established that the supplied equipment is bargin basement gear...maybe even the room below the bargin basement. You'd want to be a masochist to fork out for a 1gb connection and stick with it for routing and wifi.

Treat yourself to a decent router or mesh system and take the steps to put the VM equipment into modem mode. You'll have a much better experience.

I have my own equipment for years, I've never used either of the Hubs as my main device. My problems stem from the Hub in modem mode locking up over time and the connection in my area being dire too.



The restart is not ideal but gives a reprieve for a while.

slith

CoBo55 wrote: »

That's what I have, probably the main reason I'm enjoying such a good service!!

Download 937.57 Mbps
Upload 51.64 Mbps
Ping 10.91 ms Jitter 1.19 ms Loss 0.00 %

Honestly, that's how it should be. And this is with Netflix on.

bk

I’ve always said that to get the best performance and stability out of VM you should be using your own high quality WiFi router and VM in modem mode.

It is a pity you can’t also bring your own modem too, like some other counties support.

If you are paying out the premium for 1gig, then you really need a decent WiFi router to go with it. It feel like not doing so is like buying a Ferrari and putting Fiat Punto tires on it!

If you don’t have the budget for both, then I’d recommend the 500/50 package instead and using the money saved to get a decent wifi router. IMO you’ll end up with a better service overall.

I don’t have FTTP, but I suspect the same is true for 1 gig FTTP, most ISP’s give pretty cheap and poor routers. The companies using Fitzbox being the exception.

CoBo55

slith wrote: »

Download 937.57 Mbps
Upload 51.64 Mbps
Ping 10.91 ms Jitter 1.19 ms Loss 0.00 %

Honestly, that's how it should be. And this is with Netflix on.

That's it, I get the full 360 and more night and day irrespective of what's running on the network wirelessly too thanks to my Asus router.

sham69

Hi all,
Just upgraded from 500mb to the 1gb package.
WiFi speeds are awful, worse than my 500mb speeds.
What router do people recommend to use on this package.
I have an apple airport extreme that I was using with my 500mb and it used to get me the full speed downstairs. Upstairs has some major blackspots so mixed speeds depending on rooms. I also bought the deco m5 mesh system (2 pack) but it's not giving me anything more to be honest.

If I change to modem mode do I lose my phone? ( I have the phone with VM as part of my package)

Any advice to get the best out of the package would be appreciated as it's quite pricey.
Thanks

deravarra

sham69 wrote: »

Hi all,
Just upgraded from 500mb to the 1gb package.
WiFi speeds are awful, worse than my 500mb speeds.
What router do people recommend to use on this package.
I have an apple airport extreme that I was using with my 500mb and it used to get me the full speed downstairs. Upstairs has some major blackspots so mixed speeds depending on rooms. I also bought the deco m5 mesh system (2 pack) but it's not giving me anything more to be honest.

If I change to modem mode do I lose my phone? ( I have the phone with VM as part of my package)

Any advice to get the best out of the package would be appreciated as it's quite pricey.
Thanks

I have a Netgear Orbi RBK53S. It's a mesh system which will give you decent coverage throughout your house. I bought this to replace my deco M5 and I haven't had any blackspots anywhere in the house.
Using my deco M5, I was getting speeds of up to 80 Mbps in my kitchen. The Orbi has upped that to over 400 Mbps. The back bedroom would have gotten around 50 Mbps. Now it's getting close to 350 Mbps.

With the Orbi, I can get 520 Mbps on my PC upstairs - all this from a 500 Mbps package with VM. It cost me around €420 - but well worth it.
Some others have gone for the wifi 6 version of what I have, but that is very expensive - over €1,000!

Modem only mode will not have you lose your phone. It just turns off wifi from the Hub. The router/mesh system you connect via bridge only mode will be your wifi router.

rogue-entity

LoGiE wrote: »

My VM equipment has been in modem mode from day 1 and I haven't had any stability problems. It's nuts that anyone feels the need to restart their equipment every night. It's pretty well established that the supplied equipment is bargin basement gear...maybe even the room below the bargin basement. You'd want to be a masochist to fork out for a 1gb connection and stick with it for routing and wifi.

Treat yourself to a decent router or mesh system and take the steps to put the VM equipment into modem mode. You'll have a much better experience.

Better still would be the ability to use your own modem; would love to have a dumb modem-bridge that just spits out a public IP on a single RJ45 connection for you to plug into your own router/firewall.

I honestly miss the EPC2203 from way back, that was the most stable and reliable thing I ever had.

But what can you expect from a company that refuses to do Dual-Stack (and went out of its way to make a pigs ear out of IPv6).

bk wrote: »

If you are paying out the premium for 1gig, then you really need a decent WiFi router to go with it. It feel like not doing so is like buying a Ferrari and putting Fiat Punto tires on it!

More like those space-saver tyres, and American '85' octane petrol

sham69

Thanks for the replies folks.
I'll look into the orbi.
I have homeplugs aswell, they used to give me full speed back in the 240mb days but really not working well these days ( and I've upgraded them since then) I've probably spent close to 400 on my network over the years, different routers , WiFi extenders, home plugs, mesh etc.

The service is great when you get it working the way you want but my god the equipment they give you is shocking and it's not like we don't pay a good price for the service.

deravarra

sham69 wrote: »

The service is great when you get it working the way you want but my god the equipment they give you is shocking and it's not like we don't pay a good price for the service.

I have yet to experience or hear of someone experience an ISP who give a decent modem/router - although the Fritzbox from Digiweb is quite good.

schmoo2k

sham69 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies folks.
I'll look into the orbi.
I have homeplugs aswell, they used to give me full speed back in the 240mb days but really not working well these days ( and I've upgraded them since then) I've probably spent close to 400 on my network over the years, different routers , WiFi extenders, home plugs, mesh etc.

The service is great when you get it working the way you want but my god the equipment they give you is shocking and it's not like we don't pay a good price for the service.

Day 1 I put the VM modem in the attic and ran hard wires to the four corners of the house, I bought an OpenWRT router for bridged mode (in the attic) and simply re-used old eircom / vodafone routers etc at each corner of the house (disabled DHCP, isolation etc.), works great and is cost effective.